AUSTIN, Texas — A comedian with chronic depression turned his struggle into a standup routine. And now he’s teaching others to work through their emotional pain with comedy, proving that laughter is good medicine. 

“But seriously folks, my dad’s mental illness is depression. What’d he gonna do to ya? Bore you to death with his complaining?” Jonathan Granirer said. 

Jonathan Granirer’s dad is David Granirer, a standup comedian who has depression and bipolar disorder.

“It hit when I was 17. I attempted suicide, ended up in a psych ward, and then one thing led to another,” David Granirer said. 

Along his journey and after treatment, David Granirer created Stand Up for Mental Health, a program where he travels to cities in the U.S., Australia and Canada, teaching standup comedy to people with mental illness. 

“In comedy, you talk about things from the past that are painful, but you turn them into comedy, so there’s a wonderful way of reframing what you’ve been through. There is a cognitive shift where all of that bad stuff from the past just becomes great material,” David Granirer explained. “And all of a sudden, they’re proud of what they’ve survived, instead of feeling ashamed of it.”

People are flocking to comedy clubs across the globe for this light-hearted dose of reality. 

“The fact that they can come and see this mental health and these mental health people and leave feeling uplifted and having a laugh and feeling like there’s hope and empowerment is amazing for the audience,” Granirer said. 

It is proving to be an empowering experience for the audience, the comedians and their instructor David, Jonathan’s dad. 

“Just because my dad has a mental illness, doesn’t mean he’s a bad person. He’s just a normal person, like everyone else who needs a little bit of help,” Jonathan said.

“You can’t change the past, but you can get the last laugh and that’s incredibly therapeutic and I’ve gotten the last laugh over my suicide and my bipolar and all of the things I’ve been through,” David said. 

David Granirer travels to cities in the United States, Australia, and Canada, teaching Stand Up for Mental Health classes.